High school sophomores, juniors, and seniors are invited to apply for a poetry workshop led by award-winning poets Irène Mathieu and Valencia Robin. Learn more and apply below. Applications are due February 15, 2021.
ABOUT THE WORKSHOP
A free, virtual ten-hour workshop over five sessions for high school students interested in poetry writing. Workshops will be held weekly via Zoom every Thursday in the evening from March 4 - April 1, 2021. The workshop will focus on joy, gratitude, and other sources of power in poetry, particularly for students from marginalized backgrounds. This workshop will be led by award-winning poets Irène Mathieu and Valencia Robin, and one workshop session will feature guest poet and speaker, Zyahna Bryant.
Students who complete this workshop will be official New City Arts Poetry fellows. Additional perks of this workshop include:
An opportunity to perform work at a public reading hosted virtually via Zoom
Career advice from two working poets
A free author headshot
At least 2 books of poetry by contemporary poets
Support for this workshop is provided by Sarah and Grey McLean and generous individuals who care about Charlottesville's young artists.
HOW TO APPLY
This workshop is open to Charlottesville-area high school sophomores, juniors and seniors including but not limited to students of color, queer and nonbinary students, low-income students, immigrant students, and differently abled students. Applications are due by 11:59PM on February 15, 2021. To apply, fill out this form and send a writing sample (two pages or less) to maureen@newcityarts.org.
ABOUT THE FACILITATORS
Irène Mathieu, MD is a pediatrician, writer, and author of three collections of poetry. Her most recent book, Grand Marronage (Switchback Books 2019) won Editor’s Choice for the Gatewood Prize and runner-up for the Northwestern/Cave Canem Book Prize. She is also the author of orogeny (Trembling Pillow Press 2017), which won the Bob Kaufman Book Prize; and the galaxy of origins (dancing girl press 2014). A recipient of fellowships from Fulbright, Callaloo, and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Irène practices primary care pediatrics at the University of Virginia, where she leads workshops on poetry and medicine for physicians in training and serves as an editor for Muzzle Magazine and the humanities’ section of The Journal of General Internal Medicine. For more information, please visit www.irenemathieu.com.
Valencia Robin is a poet and visual artist. Her first collection of poems, Ridiculous Light, won Persea Books’ Lexi Rudnitsky First Book Prize, was a finalist for the Kate Tufts Discovery Award and was named one of Library Journal’s Best Poetry Books of 2019. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in the New York Times, The Virginia Quarterly Review, Poetry Daily, The Boston Review, Triquarterly and elsewhere. A co-director of the UVA Young Writers Workshop, she holds an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Virginia and an MFA in Art & Design from the University of Michigan. For more information, please see: valenciarobin.com.
ABOUT THE GUEST SPEAKER & POET
Zyahna Bryant (University of Virginia) is an award-winning student activist/organizer, content creator, and author who published her first book, a collection of poetry and essays titled, “Reclaim.” in January of 2019. Zyahna founded the Charlottesville High School Black Student Union at the age of 14. In the Spring of 2016, Zyahna wrote a petition calling for the removal of Confederate statues from Charlottesville’s parks, and City Council voted to remove them in 2017.
Zyahna was recently appointed as the youngest member of Virginia’s African American Advisory Board. She will work to advise Governor Northam on issues that impact African Americans across the commonwealth. She was recently named as a 2020 Root Young Futurist, Teen Vogue’s 21 under 21 class of 2019.
Zyahna has been featured in The New York Times, National Geographic, The New Yorker Magazine, Forbes; and featured on Vice News, PBS, CNN, and BET. In 2018, she was awarded the Princeton Prize in Race Relations and the Bassett Award for Community Engagement from Yale University. Zyahna has served as a Student School Board Representative for the Charlottesville City Schools division and is a passionate advocate for educational equity. For more information, please visit zybryant.com.